Boehner, the Republican speaker of the U.S. House, thinks
he has found a way out of the corner Norquist has put him in.
Norquist is the conservative gadfly and chief enforcer of the
no-tax pledge, which requires all signers to swear on Ronald
Reagan’s grave never -- never ever -- to vote for a tax
increase.

Boehner, who along with practically everyone else in his
party has signed the pledge, has lately been careful to say that
what he opposes is a “tax-rate increase.” But you can raise a
fellow’s taxes quite a bit without touching his tax rate.

Your tax rate is just the percentage of the last dollar you
earn that goes for taxes. But your bottom-line tax bill is
affected by many other things: not just deductions and
exclusions (known as “loopholes” when you don’t approve of
them), but also by tax brackets and rates below the top. By the
end of the presidential campaign, even Republican nominee Mitt
Romney was talking about phasing out deductions as incomes rise,
or limiting how many dollars of deductions someone can take.

In short, there’s more than one way to skin a fat cat.
Theoretically, you can reverse-engineer a tax code raising
almost any amount of money you want -- and with almost any
distribution of the burden you want -- without touching the top
tax rate. Politically, of course, it might not be so easy.

None of this changes the fact that it’s possible to make
the tax code more progressive without raising rates. Or that
Boehner is begging for a deal that could be labeled tax reform,
not a tax increase. Close the loopholes, enjoy the revenue, and
keep the top rate steady. Or, what the heck, close some more
loopholes, lower the top tax rate, and still have enough to
throw at the national debt. Maybe even start a new program or
two.

On top of everything, this would even be good tax policy.
Loopholes complicate the tax code and create perverse incentives
in the economy.

So why isn’t President Barack Obama seizing the deal and
declaring victory before Norquist wakes up? Why is he insisting
on a tax-rate increase for high-income people? That’s not a
rhetorical question. We really don’t get it.

The best we can come up with is that the president’s
position is tactical, not on the merits. He might think, with
some justification, that House Republicans won’t necessarily
follow their speaker. And with all the tax cuts expiring in a
matter of weeks, his position is only going to get stronger: If
everyone’s taxes go up on Jan. 1, more than just Norquist will
be unhappy.

We don’t believe, as Obama’s critics do, that the president
wants a tax increase simply to soak the rich. We believe he
wants a tax increase to raise the money needed to run the
government, and to do so as fairly and efficiently as possible.

At least, we want to believe that. Norquist reiterated his
humble brag this week about how he has no power to release
members of Congress from their promise. “The pledge is to the
American people,” he said. Which makes the task all the more
urgent: Mr. President, cut a deal with Boehner before the
Norquist monster fully awakes.

Today’s highlights: the editors on Israel’s right to respond to
rocket attacks and on why simple banking regulations are better;
Stephen L. Carter on what Obama can learn from FDR about
business; Susan Crawford on why mobile phones went dead after
Hurricane Sandy; William Pesek on Obama’s Southeast Asia trip;
Jonathan Weil on the Justice Department’s white-collar
prosecution numbers; Michael Petrilli on what education
reformers need to do differently; Kori Schake on adultery and
the U.S. military honor code.